


Life goes on

by varenoea2



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varenoea2/pseuds/varenoea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard enough for young Russel to deal with the aftermath of the time he spent in a coma. When he also finds out his best friend Del is dead, he is devastated. But life goes on - one way or another...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life goes on

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the characters or the location where the story takes place. All of these belong to Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn. This is a piece of fan fiction, written solely for fun, and no financial profit is being made.

Russel has been hearing voices for a long time. It feels like forever. There is nothing but where he is now, how he is now, and those occasional voices.

Until now.

Now there are these intervals of light, and more voices, and then things that he knows have already happened; but in some moments it’s so hard to see what belongs where on the timeline.

And those voices talk a lot of bullshit!

“Honey, something strange happened on the way here” – “Dr Peabody says he’s on the mend, but I don’t think so. Lost cause, if you ask me.” – “I’ll just put that there.” – And the cleaning lady, when she sweeps the floor around the bed. Sometimes she sings to herself, very badly, but Russ has grown to like it.

“Honey”, says a voice above him, and now he immediately knows it’s Mom, “are you there? Can you hear me?”

“No”, he says, because he’s not sure that this is real.

“Your eyes are open”, says Mom, and Russel realizes that his eyes are really open, and have been for a while. And there’s Mom. She looks different, thinner and more tired.

“Oh. Right.”

“Can you… can you see?”

Russel nods.

“You can see me? What color is my shirt?”

Russel hesitates.

Mom’s voice sounds tight and small. “You don’t know, do you?”

How would you know that? It’s not quite red, not quite pink, and not quite orange. If he says “red”, she’ll say “salmon” or “mauve” or “apricot” and tell him men just don’t know these things.

He’s hungry. So he goes with the best-tasting choice. “Salmon.”

This is when Mom lets out an ear-splitting howl, and the door comes open and the doctors and Dad come rushing in, and everybody pats his face and Mom breaks down in a fountain of tears of happiness.

 

They thought he was blind, they tell him later, because his irises are almost white now, and his pupils are completely clouded. Nobody knows exactly why or how he can still see when his retina is obscured, but it works, and that’s good enough for everybody.

“Doesn’t matter”, says Mom, “we will always love you, blind or seeing. We’re so happy to have you back!”

Russel wonders if he’s very lucky, or very unlucky. What’s worse – being in a coma for four years and missing out on all this time, or having to wait around for a loved one who’s in a coma, always hoping he’ll come back but maybe he won’t?

He’s nineteen now. There is a huge chunk of life that has just happened without him. Four stolen years. All because some asshat decided to fire a gun at a couple of teenagers. Can you believe it? Who would do that to someone? Russel didn’t know he could be so angry. But he was the only one who got hit, and the others were safe, and that’s all that matters.

Still, it’s hard. Russel is nineteen, but he hasn’t learned to think like a nineteen-year-old. And everybody is fussing about him. Only adults around the hospital. The other patients don’t like him because of his eyes. His parents are circling around him like helicopters all the time, and he’s very far from any place where he can catch a quiet thought.

The food sucks, too. And even though it sucks, it’s always too little. He has lost a lot of weight during the last few years, and his body is trying to catch up.

But moving around is the hardest part. Walking around the corridor would initially give him sore muscles all over his body. There was a tiny 90-year-old lady who walked past him and eyed him sympathetically.

He just wants to go home. He can’t go back to where he left – and the more he thinks about it, the more painful it gets – but there have to be some threads left to pick up. And there will be his old records, and his comic books and his instruments…

Slowly, the memories of the weeks and days before the shooting become clearer and clearer, and more and more colorful. And with every day, Russel misses Del more and more. Del is going to college now. And Russel is struggling to walk! But maybe – maybe he can come over during term break. Maybe term break is soon? What time of year is it anyway? Del would come. If Russel asked him to, he would come. And Russel spends the whole night thinking about the things they used to do, the things he wished they’d done, and how strange it’ll be when they meet again.

Maybe he can even enroll in the same college somehow… it’s only wishful thinking, but maybe there’s a way they can be as close as they used to.

“Can you get me Del’s phone number?” he asks Mom the next day, when she visits.

Mom, who is sorting his books on the small white table, shakes her head.

“You only need to call his parents and ask for it”, Russel begs.

Mom’s mouth is a strange, hard line, and she shakes her head again. But Russel doesn’t think anything of it.

“Look”, says Mom, “you’re going away for rehab in ten days. There’s no time to meet Del.”

“But I’m home for a week in between”, says Russel, almost angrily. Del has been in and out of their house since Russel was ten. She knows they’re practically joined at the hip. “And anyway, I just want to call him. Ask him how things are, what he’s studying, if he’s got a girlfriend…”

(The thought gives Russel a little pinprick in the heart area, but then he tells himself not to be selfish.)

Now Mom turns around. She sits down in the hospital chair, and her face is grey. “Honey, he’s dead”, she says.

Russel hears the words, but they don’t reach him. It’s as if there’s a glass pane in between the words and reality, and the words can’t get through.

“He died on the spot”, Mom goes on painfully. “I thought I’d tell you later, when you’re healthier.”

And then the words hit him, and the floor falls away, and there is a lump in Russel’s throat that nearly chokes him to death. Tears flow and flow, and still that lump is there and won’t go away. During all those frustrating, humiliating weeks, Russel hasn’t cried. But now, there’s no stopping the tears. Mom holds him and tells him it’s going to be alright, but he knows it’s not. It’s never going to be alright, never in a million years.

 

Three days later, they send him home. It’s the first night in his own bed. Everything feels like he’s been away for a holiday, not four years and some. It’s a complete mindfuck how everything can feel so familiar, when everybody else knows everything has changed.

Russel is grieving. He knows he’ll be grieving for a long time, and even the doctor (who found out that he found out about Del) told him so. _Grieving is natural,_ he said _, take as much time as you need._

But his parents don’t get it. They think he should be grateful and happy that _he’s_ not dead. They don’t get how he can grieve for Del, when he’s barely on the mend himself.

Well, _they_ didn’t lose their son. Easy for them to say!

So Russel is home, but feeling completely misunderstood and out of place in his old familiar room. He has come back into a life that doesn’t fit him anymore. Everybody around him has moved on, and it’s frustrating to see how Russel himself is stuck in the time when he left.

The first night in his own bed is strange. He looks up at the ceiling and tries to remember what it was like, being the old Russel who fitted between these smells and textures and objects. At least the objects are stable, even when people change.

He’s close to falling asleep, when there’s an itch in his right ear. Russel shakes his head and is much more awake than before, but wills his eyes to stay closed. He wants to go to sleep.

And he has almost made it, when someone gently says: “Russ? Wake up, man.”

Russel opens his eyes. The room is illuminated in blue. And there, right opposite Russel, there is a big blue thing pressed flat against the ceiling. Like something out of a horror movie. But Russel is not afraid. He knows he’s dreaming.

“Hi there”, he says.

“Promise me you ain’t gonna freak out?” says the blue thing, and it has a big red mouth and shiny white eyes, just like Russ, and it’s wearing a t-shirt. First, it had a long blue tail like a genie, but now that tail is becoming a pair of jeans.

But the strangest thing about it is its voice. Russel has heard it before, but he doesn’t know where.

“I ain’t freaking out”, he says and puts an arm under his head. This is a funny way to have a conversation – horizontal! But it’s comfy.

“Good.” The blue thing smiles and fiddles its fingers nervously. Yes, it has fingers too. It’s really a blue man. Boy. Whatever. “Russ… Russ, it’s me.” Blue Boy bites his lip. “Shoulda known you wouldn’t recognize me. It’s Del.”

Of course it is! Russel smiles. “How have you been, man?”

“Dead”, says Del and grins, and they both chuckle. This is a wonderful, wonderful dream. Russel hopes he never has to wake up.

“Seriously, though. I’m dead.”

“Then how are you here?”

“I’m a ghost.”

“Man, I’m glad you’re here. It’s so good to see you.”

Del looks like he wants to come down for a hug, but then he stays up there, floating against the ceiling. “Same here.”

“What’s happened during those four years I was out cold?” asks Russel.

“No idea. I was out cold too.”

For all these weeks, Russel thought nobody in the world knew how he feels. Now Del is here, and he’s been away for four years too. If Russel ever wakes up from this dream, it will be the most painful moment of his life!

“I’m so happy right now”, he says and shakes his head, “I just hope I never have to wake up.”

Del looks down on him, and his smile fades. “It’s no dream”, he says.

“No?”

“No. Give me your hand.” Del floats down to him and puts one blue, semi-translucent hand down on Russel’s wrist. It feels cool and slightly prickly, but at the same time smooth like tissue paper. Then he pinches Russel pretty roughly.

But that’s not the reason why Russel has tears in his eyes suddenly. “You’re really here.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m a ghost and I’m really here.”

Russel pulls Del into a hug. He doesn’t let go for a long time. Del is with him again. His soul-brother. Who cares if he’s a ghost? Now Russel knows he’ll be alright, somehow.

“Man, where have you been all this time?” asks Russel, and it’s meant to be a rhetorical question. But Del pushes himself up, out of Russel’s arms, and sucks in the air.

“Uh. We need to talk about that”, he says.

“Why?”

“Promise me you ain’t gonna freak out.”

“Why?!”

“Promise you ain’t gonna freak out!”

“Okay. Promise.”

“Uh.” Del clears his throat. “I’ve been in your head.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve been in your head those four years. Well, you have to have some substance to hold on to when you’re dead, if you want to stick around. So I stuck to your brain, and… uh… I possessed you.”

“You’re living in my head because you wanted to stay on earth?”

“Yeah. Kinda.”

Russel doesn’t freak out. In fact, this doesn’t even bother him.

“Problem is”, Del continues and kneads his fingers again, “I need a place to stay. If I’m out here too long, I get sucked into the void. Man, this is embarrassing as fuck. I hate doing this.”

Russel understands. Del doesn’t want to ask, because what choice does Russel have but to say yes? _No, you can’t live in my head, stay out and wait for the Grim Reaper to pick you up?_

Luckily, there isn’t even a question.

“You’re more than welcome”, says Russel, and his heart beats faster with joy. “You can stay with me. Forever. You never need to ask.”

Del bites his lip happily. “Thanks, man.”

Russel won’t sleep this night. They’ll stay up until the morning, they’ll talk about all the things they have to catch up on – their graduation, their first times, and everything that usually happens at that time. And Russel will think about how grey and drab rehab looked yesterday, and how he can’t wait to go now, because Del is with him, and now everything will be alright.

And Russel will think about how he always wanted his first time to be with Del. And he how he always wanted to tell Del what he’s been feeling about him ever since he was thirteen. But he’ll tell him in good time. There’s no hurry now.


End file.
